Offsite: Rebecca Knight & Julie Buntin: Notes to New Mothers w/ Jenny Slate

Event guidelines:

• Additional copies of the book will be available for purchase at the event.
• A signing line will follow the talk.
• The conversation will be livestreamed for free online here: https://youtube.com/live/HzH0ksCEG6Q
• Home address is collected for contact tracing purposes; it will not be used otherwise.
• As a reminder: If you are not feeling well, please do not come to the event, even if you have a ticket; email us and we'll work it out.

If you have any questions regarding these guidelines or to request accessibility accommodations, please contact [email protected].

Sixty-five writers and artists capture early motherhood in scenes and revelations: a vulnerable, kaleidoscopic record of postpartum life.

In the early days with their first babies, two friends began comparing notes on what, exactly, was going on in their postpartum bodies and minds. What was a wake window? How could anyone function under the weight of so much love? All their new-mom friends were overwhelmed too. In search of the book they needed, editors Rebecca Knight and Julie Buntin invited sixty-five acclaimed writers and artists—Julia Phillips, Kirstin Valdez Quade, Liana Finck, Jenny Slate, Naima Coster, and more—to riff on shared concerns: burp volcanos, career shifts, breastfeeding logs, partnership dynamics, minor victories and major insecurities.

Here is a bedside table companion for every mother who has wondered how she’ll make it through the wilderness of early parenthood, and a window into her experience for the family and friends desperate to better care for their beloved moms-to-be. Brave, unexpected, and revelatory, Notes to New Mothers offers a new map of motherhood as both a singular and communal experience.

Rebecca Dinerstein Knight is the author of the novels (Viking, 2020) and (Bloomsbury, 2015), the bilingual English-Norwegian collection of poems (Aschehoug, 2012), and the nonfiction collection (W. W. Norton, 2026, co-edited with Julie Buntin). Knight served as Screenwriter and Executive Producer of film adaptation, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and is now a major motion picture starring Jenny Slate, Gillian Anderson, and Zach Galifianakis. Knight has reviewed restaurants for The Village Voice and novels for The New York Times Book Review, and her essays have appeared online in The New Yorker, The Paris Review, and The New York Times, among others. A graduate of Yale and the NYU MFA program, she lives and writes in New Hampshire.

Julie Buntin’s new novel, Famous Men, is forthcoming from Random House in July. Her debut, Marlena, was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle’s John Leonard Prize and longlisted for the Center for Fiction’s First Novel Prize. It was a Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers Pick, an Indie Next pick, a Nevada Statewide Read, a Michigan Notable Book, and featured by Belletrist and Book of the Month. Buntin’s writing has appeared in The Atlantic, Harper’s, and The New York Times, among other publications. Her work has been supported by the MacDowell Colony, the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, and the New York Community Trust. In September, Norton will publish her collaborative nonfiction project, Notes to New Mothers, co-edited with Rebecca Dinerstein Knight.

Jenny Slate is an actor and stand-up comedian, and the author of the essay collection Little Weirds (an instant New York Times best seller), as well as the New York Times best selling children's book Marcel The Shell with Shoes On. Her feature film Marcel The Shell With Shoes On (which she co-wrote and starred in) was nominated for many awards, including a Critic's Choice, Golden Globe, and Academy Award. Jenny Slate lives in Massachusetts with her husband, daughter and dog. She is a graduate of Columbia University.